Marc Sandalow: Hastert will go

It nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which Dennis Hastert remains as House Speaker, a post he has held longer than any Republican in American history.

Even if he manages to deflect blame for the humiliating page scandal, he will be left with a Republican leadership teams whose disloyalty and instinct for self preservation have been fully exposed.

Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio has now offered three versions of whether he brought the Foley matter to Hastert’s attention in the spring, insisting Tuesday that the speaker “told me it has been taken care of.”

House Republican Campaign Chair Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York has a similar recollection.

Whether Hastert is being sandbagged is beside the point. It is clear that the Illinois Congressman no longer commands the devotion of his top lieutenants who are central to his abilty to lead.

The conduct of the House has been so troubling that several Republicans are proposing to abolish the page system (which prompted Democratic columnist Harold Meyerson to suggest in this morning’s Washington Post that, rather than punishing the victims, if House members cannot handle the temptation of young pages: “How about building a 700-foot fence around all Republican members of Congress?”

For Republicans, there is the crass political calculation of what timetable for Hastert’s departure does less damage to their chances of holding onto seats in November?

Some argue that an immediate resignation would elevate a bad fire into a conflagration, leaving a vacuum among the GOP leadership that would lead to further catastrophe in November.

On the other hand, Hastert is becoming the personification of the very entrenched Washington power that voters turned against when Democrats controlled Congress in 1994.

As Democrats exploit the matter for their own purposes, whose face would they rather see in television commerials?

The unknown face of a former Florida congressman, who is now in alcohol rehab? Or the more familiar face of the nation’s most powerful Republican lawmaker, who has already presided over resignations for bribery, influence peddling and alleged laundering of campaign dollars.

Hastert was scheduled to make as many as 30 appearances in the coming weeks for Republican candidates. Don’t be surprised if Hastert announces that he can not continue in his current capacity long before that.